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On Christmas Day, we received this message of success from Odessa, Ukraine: "Family with seven kids now moved to the house last Friday. Now we are buying all for them. It's take a lot of time. They are really glad. We will wait for you in the Hope House." As you know, this is not an ordinary family. This is a married couple, who both work as cooks in the street children's feeding program, that have went from having no children six months ago, to now having seven former street children living in the newly purchased and still being furnished Hope House. With your help, this initial goal has been achieved! There are now seven kids who will not have to try to find a safe spot to sleep, they now have a warm bed to sleep in and a 'mom and dad' who love them. Isn't that wonderful? Praise God from whom all blessings flow! "Let everything that lives sing praises to the Lord!" (Psalm 150:6 - New Living) The next goal is to continue to purchase the furniture and supplies necessary to house a total of 15 kids with their new 'mom and dad.' The Executive Director, Sergei, plans to go to Chisinau, Moldova to see and learn from the Bethany Christian Center. If caregivers can be found for a few days, the 'new mom and dad' will go with him and have several meetings with the other parents at Bethany. Don't you know that the other parents at Bethany will have plenty of experiences to tell the new house parents? Hope they don't scare easily. We're not sure we could go from 0 kids to 12 kids in 12 months. Whew, it makes us tired just to think about it! Oh, we do have one correction to last month's newsletter here: the funds necessary to purchase the Hope House and two other parcels of property were sent to Odessa last month, as planned. However, one of the owners of the parcels found out that the 'rich Canadians' (World Hope International - Canada) were buying the other two properties. And in typical Eastern Europe fashion, the price went up for that parcel. After consultation and agreement, Sergei went back to the owners and indicated that the offer was firm and that we would pay no more. So, as of this date, this last parcel has not yet been purchased. In the meantime, Sergei went to the mayor of Odessa and explained the feeding program and long term care program to him. He then asked for some land to be given to the charity. The mayor AGREED and has identified property right across the dirt street from Hope House as property that will be available. Please pray with us that the necessary paperwork for this property will proceed smoothly. Real estate deals in the Ukraine are just like real estate deals in the United States: time is of the essence. In Moldova, the 12 computers are being checked out and 17-inch monitors were purchased. The 4 computers going to Belti have arrived and all but one has been loaded with the necessary software. One computer had a hard drive that was dead on arrival. Funds will be sent in January to replace that drive. The single computer going to Odessa has not yet been sent to Odessa; it's awaiting Sergei to come to Bethany. Then he can take it and a monitor home with him. Another correction to last months newsletter: since the children have not yet moved into the 7th house on the Bethany campus, currently 59 children are living on the campus, not over 60 as was reported last month. Also in Moldova, both Doru Cerdei, Executive Director of Bethany Christian Center and Calvin Klaus sent us e-mails detailing projects and budgets for 2004. One of the key Horizons Foundation's goals for January is to work with our professional grant writer and to develop grant requests to like-minded charitable foundations. More opportunities need more money! On December 23rd, Calvin Klaus gave us this insight about a girl living in Bethany: "This is a wonderful time of the year. Was in Chisinau today teaching at the Seminary and one of the young children from Bethany called out to me while I was walking through the church. She ran across the sanctuary and was just full of life, bubbling all over. She said, 'I have been doing sport. I was running and fell. (Bounce, smile, happy all over face)'. I remember her when she first started to come to Philadelphia church some years back. What a change. No life, no joy, no fun and now just a ball of energy and enjoying life. Needless to say, I went away wanting to bounce, smile, happy all over face for what I had just seen the grace of God do in her life." (Note: the Philadelphia church is the location for the Bread of Life program that starts the process to get street children off the street and into Bethany.) In Guatemala City, Guatemala, the cistern is now completely operational and dispensing water that will hold water for up to 70,000 people. Some entrepreneurs are now bagging the clean water in plastic bags and then taking it into remote parts of the city to sell it. At our request, knowledgeable representatives of World Hope International have now reviewed the potential well sites and the plans for the other cisterns to insure purity. (More detail on this next month.) New opportunities update - 1. During this past month Al has been able to quantify the start of the opportunities that may be presenting in Peru. In mid-November, Horizons Foundation issued a challenge grant to the St. Louis Christian Businessmen's Association. The challenge was that for every three dollars the group would raise to help start a new orphanage (or the 'modified foster group home' concept we've found to be so successful in other countries), Horizons Foundation would provide one dollar to start a micro lending program for these same people, up to a maximum of $20,000. Over $9000 was raised that evening from a group of less than 30 people, excluding Horizons' donation. Now, we will work with Mrs. Avis Goodheart, the founder of Go Ye Ministries to insure that a viable micro lending program will happen in this section of Peru. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we have learned that World Hope International is focusing their efforts for micro lending in a country they have never been active in, yet - for 2004 it's PERU. 2. Last month we identified three orphanages that had asked Horizons Foundation for assistance. The needs of both the orphanages in Kenya and Malawi Africa were presented to Vicky Wu, Executive Director of the International Orphanage Foundation Inc. located in Cambridge MA. Ms. Wu responded by saying, "I would like to maybe start a dialogue with both of the other two directors to see what we can do long term." If you have read the book 'Syncronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership' by Joseph Jaworski, you understand this 'syncronicity moment'. If you haven't read that book, we would really encourage you to read it! Since our last newsletter, we have received a copy of a recently published book, a book that was written by one of our heroes. Dr. Jo Anne Lyon wrote a book titled 'The Ultimate Blessing'. In this book she recounts how her life changed from a childless ministers wife looking for direction to a life bubbling over with excitement as a wife, mother, grandmother and founder of a major charitable organization that now helps over 750,000 people. Please let us know if you would like a copy of this dynamic book, as we have ordered a case of specially autographed first edition copies and would like for you to have her truly inspiring story. (No charge, just accept it with our love.) Dr. Lyon started World Hope International and later helped form World Hope International - Canada. Horizons Foundation has and is partnering with both of these charities to rescue children. In His Service, Al & Charlotte Lockhart Al Lockhart Past Newsletters: 30 November 2003 31 December 2003 01 January 2004 01 February 2004 01 March 2004 01 April 2004 31 May 2004 30 June 2004 01 July 2004 01 August 2004 30 September 2004 31 October 2004 30 November 2004 31 December 2004 31 January 2005 28 February 2005 31 March 2005 02 May 2005 02 July 2005 31 August 2005 11 October 2005 18 December 2005 02 April 2006 30 June 2006 31 October 2006 |
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